Eric McHugh: The Great Randy Moss Resurrection

I promise not to get all bent out of shape in the spring when the Patriots swing a deal for Pacman Jones to replace Asante Samuel.

Eric McHugh

I promise not to get all bent out of shape in the spring when the Patriots swing a deal for Pacman Jones to replace Asante Samuel.

I know the strip-club thug will turn over a new leaf while he’s picking off 20 passes and winning Super Bowl MVP honors.

I also vow to take a deep breath in 2011 or whenever Michael Vick gets sprung from the Big House because I know he’ll be a perfect fit in Foxborough – tithing to PETA, dog-sitting for Bill Belichick and returning 16 punts for touchdowns.

I know all this because I have witnessed the Great Randy Moss Resurrection.

In two seasons with the Raiders, Moss had five 100-yard outings. He has seven in 10 games with the Patriots. In Oakland, Moss scored 11 touchdowns in 29 games. Here he has 16.

With 66 catches for 1,052 yards he’s already bettered his entire 2005 output with the Silver and Black (60-1,005) and might eclipse his two-year total with the Raiders (102-1,558) by Christmas.

After his ta-da! debut against the Jets in Week 1 (9-183, TD), Moss seemed to take offense when someone asked if he were intent on revitalizing his career after the two-year fog by the Bay.

“Everybody knows who I am,” he famously declared. “I don’t have to revitalize nothing.”

But he has.

What’s your favorite Moss Moment from 2007? Mine is the ridiculous, one-handed snatch over the middle against the Colts. He didn’t even bother to use his other hand to secure the ball. He could have tied it behind his back and still made the play.

Tom Brady jokingly reminded Moss after that one that there are no style points awarded in football. If there were, the big guy might have coaxed 10.0s out of even the Iranian and North Korean judges.

Honestly, did you think the Moss trade – consummated for a criminally low price (a fourth-round pick) and dropped into the usually snoozable Day 2 of the draft – would be such an all-time slam dunk?

It’s like the old Steven Wright joke about how he put a new engine in his car but forgot to take out the old one so now he can go 500 miles an hour.

With Moss on board, the Patriots’ offense looks like it’s been sent down here on a collective rehab assignment from a higher league.

Who gets the credit for that? Brady has been magnificent, sure, but did he just discover how to ransack the record book? Wes Welker (68-729, 7 TDs) has been a revelation – an in-his-prime Troy Brown with a little more zip and a better juke move. But it’s Moss who has fueled it all, toying with cornerbacks, driving safeties batty and keeping a cork in those champagne bottles that the 1972 Dolphins crack open whenever the last unbeaten team gets beaten.

That still hasn’t happened for the 10-0 Patriots, and it would be a colossal upset if the 5-5 Eagles were to pull the trick Sunday night.

Thirty-one other NFL teams must be kicking themselves for not taking a chance on Moss. How was Jerry Jones not seduced by the thought of Moss and Terrell Owens on the same team? Why didn’t the Packers pony up a second-rounder? (Not that Brett Favre is scuffling, mind you.) And for crying out loud, where was Daniel Snyder when the Raiders were holding their Moss yard sale?

Guess everyone else was scared off Moss’ supposed baggage – questions about his “diminishing” skills and his attitude. His off-field transgressions – a racially charged fight in high school, a weakness for weed – never reached the Pacman/Vick level. His “crimes” were seen mostly as having been committed against football. Loafing. Moping. Tuning out completely in Oakland.

You figured a guy like that would be the last candidate for sainthood in Foxborough. How many times has Bill Belichick praised a Patriot by saying, “Football is important to him”? How many of us wondered if, at times, football ranked somewhere in the 40s on Moss’ List of Stuff I Think is Important?

Turns out the doubters were wrong. More and more it appears that Moss and Belichick are completely simpatico.

They spent last Sunday and Monday tossing bouquets at each other. Moss went first, praising his coach to the high heavens after the 56-10 win over the Bills. Seems Moss loved how Belichick went to the whip hand all week to keep the Pats focused coming out of their bye. Moss said of Belichick: “I consider him the greatest coach ever.”

The next day Belichick returned the compliment, saying, “As a head coach, (I’ve) never had a better receiver than Randy.”

Quizzed about whether the Hall of Fame coach and the Hall of Fame receiver might, in fact, be more alike than we all supposed, tight end Kyle Brady smiled and said, “Not in personality, necessarily.”

Then again, Belichick’s entourage includes rock stars (Jon Bon Jovi), comedians (Lenny Clarke) and Charles Barkley, so that dour image might just be for public consumption. Moss, too, keeps the media at a distance, but anyone who has set foot in the Patriots’ locker room can tell you that players – receivers especially – gravitate to him like moths to a porch light.

Said running back Laurence Maroney: “Man, that dude’s funny. I don’t understand why (some people) get this negative thing about him. Just like they say, ‘Aw, (Corey Dillon) is this type of person.’ If you just took a chance and sat down and got to know these guys, they’re a great group of guys. Corey was good, Moss is good. I don’t see the bad attitude. Maybe you just caught them on a bad day.”

Does Moss even have any bad days anymore?

Note to self – don’t bat an eye if the Patriots pry Ricky Williams out of Miami in the offseason.

That haze of pot smoke? Around here the only thing you’d sniff would be the sweet smell of success.

Eric McHugh may be reached at emchugh@ledger.com.

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